96 Quotes by Mark Strand

Ink runs from the corners of my mouth.There is no happiness like mine.I have been eating poetry.

The Coming of LightEven this late it happens:the coming of love, the coming of light. You wake and the candles are lit as if by themselves, stars gather, dreams pour into your pillows, sending up warm bouquets of air.Even this late the bones of the body shine and tomorrow’s dust flares into breath.

In a fieldI am the absenceof field.This isalways the case.Wherever I amI am what is missing.

Not every man knows what he shall sing at the end

Even this late it happens:the coming of love, the coming of light.

Sometimes he did not know if he slept or just thought about sleep.

How can I sing?Time tells me what I am. I change and I am the same.I empty myself of my life and my life remains.

These wrinkles are nothingThese gray hairs are nothing,This stomach which sagswith old food, these bruisedand swollen ankles, my darkening brain,they are nothing.I am the same boymy mother used to kiss.

When we walk in the sunour shadows are like barges of silence.